


love to love, let’s get to playin’ (decked out in adidas and gunnin’ for aces)

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Tennis, Character Study: Alexis Rose, Character Study: Twyla Sands, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Queer Twyla Sands, Slow Burn, Tennis Coach Mutt Schitt, Tennis Coach Ronnie Lee, bisexual alexis rose, competitors to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29303559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: Alexis has always kept her opponents a racket’s length away, at least. That talent’s come pretty naturally to her.Until now.Twylexis tennis AU.
Relationships: Alexis Rose/Twyla Sands
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	love to love, let’s get to playin’ (decked out in adidas and gunnin’ for aces)

Alexis realizes, a tick too late, that she's come in too close to the net.

Ronnie's voice shouts, _"Drop back!"_ in her head. _"Don't give up even one free point."_

She's said that plenty of times over the years.

Alexis should pay attention. Ronnie's a great coach, and she's lucky to have her.

Her spirit says, _"Stay,"_ though, and she's headstrong. It's helped get her this far—on the verge of making the quarterfinals in the U.S. Open—so she listens to it.

Angie Kerber lofts a lob over her head, and even with her lengthy wingspan, there's no way she can get up to smash it.

If she runs hard, she can get at least parallel to the ball and hit a decent forehand return.

But it's New York, and the late afternoon has given way to the early evening, and she's nothing if not an entertainer under the lights. And if Alexis can't put on a show here, especially when she's up 5-2 in the second set, on total cruise control, on the verge of ending the match, then what's she even _doing_?

So she runs back to cover the shot, but leaves a little something in the tank. The ball drops in front of her, a bit behind the service line, and she lets it bounce low as she glances back to scope out Kerber's position.

There are a few ways she can fuck this up, but she'd rather not drill a tennis ball into the inside of her thigh, or worse. Besides the pain, she'll undoubtedly end up on SportsCenter's Not Top 10, which is _so_ not consistent with her brand. If she blasts it long or hits it into the net, whatever.

She hears the crowd start to gasp in anticipation as she raises her racket, as she widens her legs a bit to go for an admittedly unnecessary tweener shot, and she can't help but grin to herself. Courts have always been synonymous with home for Alexis—have always been replacements for home, really—but there's something about New York's electricity, its irreverent incongruity with so much of tennis' genteel sensibility, that speaks to her the most.

She wallops the ball from about a half-foot off the ground, tells herself to finish her shot and swing her racket all the way through her legs before she looks back.

The crowd's roar provides all the explanation she needs, as does Kerber's disgusted head shake and thousand-yard stare into the sky.

Alexis watches the replay—it's considered bad form on the WTA unless you're checking whether or not you wanna use a challenge, but come on. She's supposed to _not_ be impressed with herself after clipping the back line with that shot?

" _Fuck that,"_ Alexis thinks smugly as she turns around, gives a Michael Jordan shrug to Kerber, and earns a scowl for it. She can feel Ronnie's stare, though, so she turns back and glances up to where she's seated.

She's wearing her usual mixture of exasperation and pride when Alexis successfully pulls off some out-of-structure nonsense. There's clearly a touch of irritation in her advice, though. "No more trick shots, princess."

Alexis tamps down her smile, nods, offers her a quick thumbs-up as one of the ball kids passes her two fresh tennis balls to serve the match out.

"40-15. Match point, Ms. Rose. Quiet, please," the umpire drones, and she wishes she could overrule him on the last point. She loves the crowd noise; it's not a distraction for her at all. It's like having the TV on in the background with dinner. It's comfort and normalcy—the sterile, eerie silence of tennis is one of the few things about the sport that she doesn't particularly enjoy. She can withdraw too far inward, into a deep-dive of her mind, because of it, and no one wants to go there.

" _Least of all me,"_ she thinks before she closes up that chink in her concentration.

Alexis re-focuses on her breathing, on the triple ball bounce and left foot tap routine she always uses before serving, on how Kerber's leaning the tiniest bit away from the center of the court. She pulls a breath in as she swings her racket forward, holds it til she brings it back, and lets out a puff of a grunt as she rips her serve down the centerline.

Kerber lunges, gets a stab of a backhand on it, but her return falls well short, and Alexis raises her arms in triumph before she jogs the rest of the way to the net for the standard handshake-hug situation.

"Good game, Angelique!" she gushes, pulling her close from across the net. "Always a pleasure. By the way, _love_ your outfit. Very nineties with the electric blue and neon pink."

"Yes, a pleasure," Kerber mutters, her tone wooden, but, like, hello, no one's ever _happy_ to lose.

She retreats to the locker room and Alexis stays, giving the customary bows to each fourth of the stands before signing and whacking a couple balls out to spectators for souvenirs. She's on autopilot mode from there, giving her standard victorious interview quotes about "taking one point at a time" and "enjoying the win tonight before I get back to work tomorrow" and "embracing the challenge of whatever great competitor comes up next." She spends a few minutes autographing pictures, shirts, hats and whatever else people in the first couple rows have with them before she leaves the court, too.

She checks her phone before she showers and flicks through messages from David, various friends, previous opponents, and sundry celebs—Guy Fieri's been trying to get her to check out Don Antonio's pizza for _forever;_ maybe she'll go for a treat if she advances to the semis. She tosses up a quick Instagram post with a picture of the updated bracket and the caption, "First time in the quarters in the city that never sleeps! #GateCrasher #LiveLexLove #USOpen #AcesWild."

She puts her phone away and grabs fresh clothes and a towel before she hops into the shower. As she breathes deep and luxuriates under the jets of hot water, she lets herself think, _"Just once, I'd like to hear from Mom or Dad."_

She wonders, once in a while, what it'll take for them to actually say that they're proud of her. How many victories she'll have to rack up at majors, how many trophies she'll have to add to her case. How many of those will have to _be_ Grand Slam trophies for her parents to notice her.

She's still hunting for her first, after all. Though she'd broken through to the semis at Australia last year and the quarters at Wimbledon, too.

" _Whatever,"_ she thinks as she scrubs her hair, willing her negative emotions to swirl down the drain. One of her favorite parts of tennis is that she can afford to be a lone wolf, but the self-reliance cuts both ways: she can keep potential issues at arm's length, but she's also almost solely responsible for her performances.

**

She shuts off the shower, gets dressed, and starts reading over the Google doc scouting reports she and Ronnie have compiled while she grabs a bite to eat in the players' lounge.

"Ooh, right, Madison is playing tonight, nice," Alexis murmurs to herself as she chows down on a buffalo chicken salad. She glances through the report in full, but she knows Maddy's game pretty well—the two of them have faced off a few times and played doubles together at lower-level events, and they've gone out together to clubs and parties here and there on the circuit. So she turns her attention to her opponent.

"Twyla Sands," she mutters, taking in a picture of the short brunette. "Let's see whatcha got on your racket, shall we?"

After looking at her bio and match history, it suddenly clicks why Alexis hasn't seen her much before—she's from some tiny, podunk town in the middle of nowhere in Canada. But, like, the _super_ middle of nowhere, not just Iowa or something: her hometown's population is under 700. And she'd been in the challenger circuit more recently than Alexis, too.

She pores over Ronnie's notes: _Twyla's a cagey, crafty player who wins with her smarts and her feet more than undeniable physical gifts. Better suited for success on grass and clay than on hard court, but has put in time and effort to round out her all-around game the past couple years. Relies more on deception and shot placement to win than power. About average in terms of forehand, backhand, and serve strength. Scrappy as all get out—will make you work for every point._

And her own, which are admittedly less focused: _Twyla's a super unpredictable player in terms of match-to-match and even in-match strategies. Like, if the Joker played tennis but wasn't an absolute psycho. Stays crazy even-keeled, manages her emotions well. She's so tiny compared to most of us on tour—it's kinda cute, in a way! Like, yeah, women who are under 5'7 or 5'8_ _do_ _exist. But that def. puts her at a disadvantage for shot-making and hitting lasers if needed. More of a Hermione than a Harry, in terms of strategy being a bigger strength than natural ability._

She tosses on one of the generic U.S. Open hats she's gotten and a pair of oversized sunglasses to go with her casual athletic gear as she rejoins the main concourse to make her way to where Ronnie's sitting in the Grandstand—she'd rather not deal with overly zealous fans on the way over, and while everyone will undoubtedly know who she is once she settles in next to her coach, spectators are generally pretty respectful of players in attendance.

"Well played match, Alexis," Ronnie greets her warmly.

She grins. "Thanks. Feels great to be through. And I'm excited to watch this one."

She nods at the two women emerging from the tunnel for warm-ups—Madison wearing a black top and white tennis skirt with gold accent trim, and Twyla wearing a sky-blue top with a black skirt, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. "I haven't watched Madi play in a minute, and I'm pretty intrigued by Twyla. She's like a lil mystery wrapped up in an enigma."

Ronnie shakes her head bemusedly at her description, and the two chat about Alexis' recovery and training plan for her day off before the match gets underway.

It takes Twyla a bit of time to settle in—Alexis guesses it's nerves, either from knowing what's at stake or playing in the Grandstand or both—and Madison claims the first set with a relatively easy 6-4 win.

"I think Madison's gonna go through," Alexis whispers as the second set begins. "The stage seems too big for Twyla."

"Could be," Ronnie admits. "But she's here for a reason, too."

That becomes more obvious partway through the second set, as Twyla starts mixing in slices and lobs and going for some truly absurd angled shots to yank Madison off the court.

At one point, she steps around a backhand inside the service line, looking ready to load up for a massive forehand cut, and Alexis guesses to Ronnie, "She's gonna crush it down the line."

Instead, Twyla adjusts her stroke at the last second and plays an audacious drop shot, getting a loud "ooh" of approval from the court as Madison can't react to it.

Ronnie turns to Alexis and smirks. "You were saying?"

"Oh, whatever, I guessed wrong _once_ ," she huffs as she watches Twyla wink and point to someone in the crowd—maybe her coach? Alexis looks across and, okay, whether that's Twyla's coach or boyfriend or just a friend, the guy she just interacted with is downright hot. He looks a little too rugged to _just_ be a tennis coach, and his beard must be hell in the steamy summer weather, but it frames his face nicely.

"...Alexis?"

She ropes her attention in, gives it back to Ronnie. "Hmm?"

"I was saying, you could stand to pay attention to Madison and Twyla's footwork. Yours was a bit sloppy at times in the first set. You cleaned it up well in the second, though."

She bites back her retort that it's easier to be nimble and take short, choppy steps at 5'3 or 5'5 than it is at 5'7, but Ronnie's right, and she's not unkind in her criticism. She nods. "I'll do that."

Normally, her attention ping-pongs back and forth between opponents in any given match, but tonight, it remains more or less glued on Twyla.

" _Probably because I've only seen her play a couple of times compared to Madison,"_ she figures. And, yeah, she can admit that Twyla's footwork _is_ better than hers—meticulously precise, because she can't afford any wasted movement. And while she can't always overpower her opponents with ground strokes, she seems spring-loaded, able to accelerate quickly to keep balls in play on defense and produce enough torque with her entire frame to blast shots past Madison once in a while.

Be that as it may, Twyla's on her last life, down 5-6 in the second set.

The umpire calls, "40-30. Match point, Ms. Keys. Quiet, please."

The crowd's buzz dulls the tiniest bit to a quiet simmer—they're obviously pulling for the American, and Twyla senses that, sets her mouth into a grimly determined line even though she looks the tiniest bit nauseous.

Madison sends her first serve into the net and simply spins the second one in to avoid double-faulting.

Twyla pounces on it and goes for broke, smoking a backhand cross-court, aiming for the baseline, and Alexis can't help but admire the faint outline of abs she sees as her shirt billows up with her fierce motion.

Madison's return goes wide, and she emits a groan of despair while Twyla blows out a sigh of relief.

"Takes some moxie to play not to lose in that situation," Ronnie notes with a hint of admiration, and Alexis finds herself agreeing.

"Yeah. Yeah, Twyla played that well."

The tension boils over as the ladies battle to six all and there's a TV timeout after the umpire dramatically announces, "Tiebreak."

They go back and forth, trading points until Twyla snatches two in a row, saving another match point and flipping the tiebreak score from 6-7 to 8-7 over a couple of long rallies.

"Set point, Ms. Sands."

She sends a high-bouncing kick serve out wide, but Madison's ready for it and whacks a sharp forehand into the left hand corner of the court. Twyla digs for it and manages to slice the ball back over the net with a backhand, but she's definitely in trouble.

Madison charges in and drags Twyla into the deep right corner with another blistering shot.

" _There's no way she'll get that one. No fucking way,"_ Alexis thinks.

Twyla does, somehow; she'd guessed right, like a soccer goalie facing a penalty kick, that Madison would go cross-court and was already moving before she'd made her shot. She cracks a desperation forehand up the line, a full extension stick save on a dead sprint, and slides well out of bounds, nearly to one of the sponsorship boards along the side, to slow herself down.

Alexis is a bit surprised that Madison doesn't try to volley the return, but there's no way it'll land in. No fucking way. It's going wide, or long, or both.

Her gasp gets absorbed by the crowd's at the sight—she's pretty damn sure the ball clipped sideline chalk at the very corner of the right baseline.

" _Come on!"_

Twyla's primal, guttural scream, and the way she flexes her arms as she yells, makes Alexis gasp a second time. It's hardly unusual for competitors to yell, and that phrase, in particular, has become standard tennis vernacular over the past twenty years or so. But something about the fury escaping Twyla—a small woman, even by tennis standards, and one who hasn't made much noise to this point—leaves Alexis a touch shocked.

A stunned, disbelieving Madison puts her pointer finger up to challenge. She can't carry it into a potential third set, so she might as well use it.

"Ms. Keys is challenging the call on the far right side. The ball was called in."

Twyla's shaking her head, already walking to the change-over area, not even watching the replay to confirm what she apparently knows to be true.

"The ball _is_ in. Set, Ms. Sands. We're tied at one set apiece," the umpire announces.

Alexis wants to take a video of that instant—not that she's allowed—for every cynical sports radio shock-jock who insists that "momentum isn't real."

Sure, maybe the concepts of momentum and "the ebb and flow of the match" get overhyped by announces looking to push narratives and storylines, but it's impossible to ignore how Madison's shoulders slump as she walks back to her changeover area in a fog, having gone from the brink of winning to having to play another set. Or how Twyla's back on her feet almost before Madison even sits down, ready to strike, ready to make the most of her new life in this pivotal third set.

Twyla's cool confidence swells after she breaks Madison's serve midway through the pivotal frame to go up 4-2. She seems to take the crowd's natural backing of their American girl and the corresponding rallying cries of, "Come on, Madison!" and "Let's go, Madi!" as personal insults. Meanwhile, Madison's folding under the weight of the exhortations.

Alexis is still pulling for her, as they're at least on friendly terms. And she barely knows Twyla, after all. But the Canadian woman's got a near-maniacal glint in her eye, plus a newfound casualness to her walk between points, that Alexis recognizes as kindred spirits to her own. That look is one she develops when she _knows_ her opponent's will has cracked apart. And she adopts that little strut when her prey's been weakened and she can unhinge her jaw and fucking devour her victory whole.

Ronnie nudges her shoulder. "Told you. Anything can happen."

"I know," she murmurs, but the reminder's helpful.

Madison fights til the bitter end, but ends up falling 6-3 in the final set, pushing a forehand wide.

Twyla drops to her knees for a sec, looking skyward with a massive grin like she can't quite believe what's happened, before she pops back up to greet Madison at the net.

Alexis and Ronnie stay seated—it's always easier to get out of marquee stadiums at Grand Slam events by waiting for the interview to wrap up.

"So, Twyla," Pam Shriver comments once Madison's exited, stage right. "You've taken quite the journey to get here, all the way from Schitt's Creek, Canada through the WTA challenger series to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open. How's it feel?"

"I—I don't know, honestly, Pam. It still doesn't quite seem real yet," she admits, blushing as she laughs a little. "It's been incredible so far, though, and I have so many people to thank back home for supporting me over the years. Especially my coach and good friend, Mutt—" neither Alexis nor Ronnie can bite back snorts of laughter at the name— "and two of my biggest cheerleaders from the town, Roland and Jocelyn. I'm thrilled you two could make it out to New York to see me tonight."

She waves to a blonde couple sitting next to Mutt, and Alexis registers a twinge of jealousy at the warm, glowing looks passing between all of them, at how they whoop, "Way to go, Twyla!" At how they're happy to so unabashedly support someone who doesn't even appear to be a blood relative.

She asks Ronnie, partially in amazement and partially to distract herself, "Are those sublimated _cats_ playing with tennis balls on that woman's t-shirt?"

"Looks that way," Ronnie mutters as the interview goes on.

When the cheering's died down, Pam asks, "Could you talk us through what you were thinking on those match points you saved in the second set?"

"I was just thinking—if I go down, I wanna do it on my own terms. I'd rather miss a shot from taking a calculated risk than play it safe and have a loss forced on me, you know?" Twyla explains. "And I was fortunate to convert those plays, for sure, but that's where all the practice time comes in, too."

The next couple of exchanges are the standard "What did you think of your opponent?" and "Thanks for chatting with us" lines, so Alexis and Ronnie head out.

Alexis can't help but notice, though, how Twyla lingers to not just autograph things from her little crowd of supporters now forming in the front seating rows, but to actually talk to all of them and snap pictures.

She feels Ronnie's eyes on her again. "Penny for your thoughts, princess?"

"Nothing," Alexis murmurs as she sees Twyla wave to the kids and parents one last time before she disappears into the hallway leading to the locker room. "Just, after watching Twyla in person...it helped me realize how calm she is. She seems cool. She's good."

She's not sure if she's referencing what little she knows about Twyla Sands the tennis player, or Twyla Sands the person.


End file.
